


Meniscus

by Lemon Drop (quercus)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-12-28
Updated: 1999-12-28
Packaged: 2017-12-04 13:27:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quercus/pseuds/Lemon%20Drop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The senses go haywire when emotion is involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meniscus

"Where the _fuck_ are you, Sandburg!" Jim bellowed, swinging helplessly around. Where was his partner, his friend, his Guide? Jesus, he needed him _now_. "Fuck," he muttered, stamping his feet restlessly. He swallowed, and tried to think. He could hear Blair's mellow baritone in his head, instructing him in that calm, occasionally infuriating voice he used: Take a deep breath, Jim. Now let it out. Let everything go. You know your senses go haywire when your emotions are involved. 

Well, his emotions were involved now, Jim thought, trying to calm his racing heart. Shit. He was as deaf and blind as Helen Keller, and where was his Annie Sullivan to spell "water" in his groping hand? "Blair!" he shouted, "Blair!" He took a tentative step forward and touched the back of the couch. He picked up his feet carefully, trying not to trip on the throw rug, and worked his way to the end of the couch, then cautiously sat down. "Blair," he whispered, and felt tears roll out of his unseeing, his fucking _worthless_ eyes. "Please, Blair." 

Outside, the rain fell as from buckets, thrumming on the clerestory windows and crashing onto the cement balcony floor; the vibration reached Jim through his very skin. A cold wind crept through the cracks of the sliding glass doors and he shivered. He sniffed loudly and wiped his eyes with shaking hands. He was so scared. 

He knew Blair had been there just moments before. Right there, in their warm living room, watching tv, reading a fat textbook, and talking at the same time, as only Blair could. It was Jim's turn to do dishes, since Blair had cooked: spring rolls stuffed with finely minced vegetables and served with a plum sauce, god it had been good, so Jim splashed in the kitchen sink and listened with a happy heart to his friend's play-by-play of some office politics he'd observed at the PD. Jim had rinsed the sink, mopped the counter, carefully squeezed the soapy water from the dishrag, and turned to make some smart-ass comment about eavesdroppers never hearing good things about themselves, when there'd been a flash of light. Not lightning; they rarely got lightning in the Pacific Northwest, but even when they did, it wasn't that color, not in that part of the spectrum. 

Instead, the light had been more like what Jim imagined an x-ray would be: an ozone blue-white that scorched his optic nerve and sent some terrible _off_ message to the vision center of his brain. And then he'd heard nothing. No thunder, no transformer exploding in the distance, no yelp of surprise from his friend. He'd heard nothing. 

More than that, Jim remembered, resting his face in his hands, he'd _heard nothing_. How nothing could have a sound he didn't know. Maybe it was an hallucination? Or some Sentinel thing. Blair would know, or would figure it out, or would make up something comforting. But he couldn't find Blair. Blair was gone. Blair had left the building. 

Fuck. Jim felt a longing for Blair's presence so visceral, so powerful that for a moment he thought he might vomit. He recalled the weeks after his mother had left, and the agonizing longing for her presence, her touch, her smell. Smell. 

He sniffed again, and then took a long, slow, deep breath. First through his nose and then, as Sandburg had taught him, through his mouth, letting the air roll over his palate. He filled his lungs repeatedly, getting light-headed, but smelt nothing. More important, he didn't smell Blair. 

But he should smell something of Blair, right? He always did. His shampoo, aftershave, deodorant, body odor, the unobtrusive smells that all humans emit and that he could identify several blocks away from Blair. The detergent and fabric softener of his clothes. The worn leather of his battered Nikes. His socks, usually mismatched. The distinct tang of the jewelry he wore in his ear, almost a taste in Jim's mouth. 

Nothing. As if Blair had never been in this apartment, never touched Jim, never existed. Jim sniffed his shirt sleeve of the arm he usually draped over Blair's shoulders: there. Finally, Sentinel proof of Blair's existence. Minute and faint, but unmistakable. He scooted down in the couch until he could rest his head on the back cushions and then draped his arm over his face, inhaling deeply, finding comfort in the distant scent of his friend. 

When he pulled his arm away, he expected to be able to see again, miraculously cured by the scent of Blair. But the room was still dark. Maybe it simply _was_ dark. He slid across the width of the sofa to the end next to a table with a lamp and carefully reached out for the lamp shade. There was no need: he could feel from where he sat the heat of the light. He stared at the heat source, willing himself to see, begging one photon to impinge on his retina and fire something in his brain, but the room remained resolutely dark. 

Resolutely Blair-less. 

Well, this was great, Jim thought, rolling his head back again. Lights are on but nobody's home. Curious, he snapped his fingers, but no sound reached his ears. He said, "Blair," again, but the sound was off. Inside. Hollow. 

At least he'd stopped crying. Jesus. He rarely cried in front of Blair; he felt responsible for Blair and that meant not relying on him for more than he absolutely had to. And he had to rely on him too much as it was. He couldn't, he _refused_ to rely on Blair emotionally. Or so he'd thought. Now, in Blair's unexpected and unexplained absence, he realized he did rely on him emotionally. To fix him emotionally. He felt -- deserted. 

Maybe Blair was hurt, too. Although that wouldn't explain the absence of his scent, it would explain why Jim wasn't feeling Blair's strong, callused hands soothing his face, coming up with some bizarre way to communicate or, better yet, to solve the riddle. 

Okay, okay. The senses go haywire when emotion is involved. That was a proven fact. But his emotions hadn't been involved, had they? Unless happiness at one's home life was an emotion. Well, technically, yes, happiness was an emotion, but he wasn't ecstatic. Just normal, everyday, garden-variety happiness at being at home, his job done for the day, ready to hunker down for a couple hours of reading or watching tv and of listening to his friend. It had been a particularly keen moment of pleasure, Jim admitted to himself, that he'd felt as he'd turned from the kitchen toward Blair. Maybe emotions were involved, although that went in the don't-tell-Sandburg file. If his senses fritzed out because he was happy to have a few moments with Blair . . . 

This was like some weird trial Sandburg had told him about. Different cultures, he remembered from the many lectures he'd sat through during stakeouts, dinners, walks along the beach, used ordeals to mark passage of a person from one stage of their life to the next. Rites of passage. Rites de pasage, he could hear Blair say in a phony French accent. Or maybe not so phony. Blair often hid his erudition from others, not wanting to frighten them off. Jim had noticed that early on; that he'd share a certain amount of knowledge and then turn it into a joke. He'd helped Blair do that, too, he remembered with a sense of shame. But Blair was brilliant. A scholar. And Jim admired and respected his scholarliness. But never told him. 

"Did I say 'shit'?" Jim asked aloud, but decided not to speak again; the lack of his own voice creeped him out. But he needed to do something. Call Simon? Steven? Joel? But how could he tell if they'd answer the phone? 

Later. First, he would quarter the room. He was trained in surveillance, trained in finding people who didn't want to be found, trained in rescue and recovery. He slid back along the couch, mapping the apartment in his mind's eye, and then stood, arms outstretched, and, taking baby steps, walked toward the front door. He'd start there and move through the room, moving cautiously in case Blair was unconscious on the floor. 

Somehow he'd gotten turned around, though, and he was at the stairs to the loft. Great. He held onto the railing, seeing in his mind Blair sitting on the steps, tying his bootlaces and looking up at him with affection. The image was so strong that for a moment he believed it, believed he was seeing his friend _right there_. But he saw nothing. Felt nothing as he pawed the air where Blair had sat all those years ago. 

I miss you, he thought and felt tears yet again fill his useless useless eyes. Goddammit, I miss you. If you were here, I wouldn't be blind, I wouldn't be deaf. Angrily, he wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve. "Blair!" he shouted again, in spite of his resolution to remain silent. "Chief," he whispered, "Oh, Chief, just be here," and then he turned to begin quartering the room. 

Trailing one hand along the brick wall, he moved away from the stairs, shuffling cautiously. He felt the stereo speaker at his shins, and lifted his feet up and around it. When he reached the corner, arm thrust into the potted plant, he stopped. 

This would take forever. And maybe he had to do it. But Sandburg would have him use his abilities, first. Everything's still there, he could hear Blair instruct him; you just need to extract it. He leaned heavily against the scratchy bricks, and fell into a breathing exercise Sandburg had taught him. After a minute, he visualized the scene after dinner again. Squeezing the dishrag and squaring it over the edge of the sink. Hearing Sandburg's voice. Turning to look at his Guide, where he sat cross-legged on the sofa. And then the light. 

Slow down, slow down! he could hear Blair tell him. You have the attention span of a gerbil. Okay, he could slow it down. Turning, what did he see? The sink, the counter, the fridge, the support pillar, the table, the sofa, Blair. He replayed the scene as if a tape, again and again. There has to be something, he scolded himself. Don't be a goddam gerbil. 

On impulse, he tried to see the room -- differently. A different part of the spectrum. A different spectrum entirely. How would a room look if you couldn't see visible light, only ultraviolet, or infrared? Or as sound? Sound was waves, too, just as light was. Could you see sound? Could he, a Sentinel, see sound? Radio waves? Why hadn't Blair tested him on this; he'd tested everything else in the universe. 

But that wasn't fair. Probably Blair _would_ have tested him, if Jim had let him. So now he'd have to do it by himself. And once again, he replayed the scene when he was in the kitchen, turning to his friend, trying to shift frequencies, trying to remember high school physics and casual reading about lightyears and subatomic particles. He did what he termed powering down his sight, except he didn't have sight at the moment, so it was all imaginary, but he powered it down. Looking into paint or wood, on a case, he could sometimes see the whirls of fingerprints or microscopic scratches. That's what he tried to do in his memory. 

And then he saw something. Blair was right, as usual; everything was stored in his memory, waiting for him to stop being stupid and start using his abilities. As he'd turned to look at Blair, beyond him, at the balcony windows, he'd caught a glimpse of something. Something white. Thin. Elongated. Wavy, as if a reflection. Or as if seen through glass smeared with running water. 

Something had been on the balcony. Something had done this to him and Blair. Government, he first thought, but it didn't matter at this point who. He pushed away from the corner and, hands outstretched in front of him, tried to hurry to the balcony doors. He angrily pushed off the wall, striding to the balcony doors, almost bouncing off them. Jesus. 

He fumbled with the lock, hands shaking, and then pushed them open. The wind threw rain into his face; for a moment, he simply listened. No heartbeat, no breaths, but then, he couldn't hear anything, could he. "Blair!" he shouted, hating the isolation his voice created. "Blair!" He dropped to his knees and put his hands on the floor, feeling in front of him. Water was standing on the balcony about a quarter inch deep, but he kept crawling out into the weather, soaked to the waist, water running down his face like tears. Nothing -- no. Wait. 

He patted his hands like a baker against something lying on the balcony. Jesus, don't let me lose my sense of touch, he pleaded, remembering the times he'd done just that. His hands felt like blocks of wood, but whether that was another reaction to his stress or a reaction to the cold, he didn't know. "Blair," he whispered, and stretched out flat on the balcony, shivering. He fit his hands around whatever it was -- a bare leg. With only three toes. 

He jerked back into the apartment and almost slammed the doors shut when he remembered Blair. Whatever was on the balcony might have Blair. So he reached up and out, this time, and touched something firm and cool. In his mind's eye, it was milk white, marbled, something not quite human but not entirely alien. Something watching him. 

If this is a bad dream, he thought, I'm fucking giving up pizza for life. He kept moving his hands over the firmness, was it flesh? and rose to his knees, then to his feet. He felt something like shoulders and then a flat face. He patted it, too, then rested his hands there. "Can you help me?" he asked, or tried to, but his voice shouted out. "Please, help me! Is my friend there?" 

Whatever he was touching stood there unmoving, as if it were a marble column, and then he felt its touch. Long-fingered hands ran up his arms and then patted his face, mimicking Jim's behavior. Cool and solid, they rested, one on each side of his mouth. He spoke again, letting whoever it was feel his lips move as he asked, "Please. Is my friend with you? Will you help me find him?" 

For long minutes he stood with the hands on his face, rain washing down him and blowing into his apartment. The hardwood floors, he thought idly, trembling in the icy deluge. The carpet. Blair. "Help me," he finally whispered again. 

Then the hands were gone and there was another flash, burning into his retinas like hot pokers. He fell again to his knees, hiding his face in his hands, and realized that he could hear the rain as it sluiced down on him. He opened his eyes and could see. The balcony was empty. 

His knees were cut and bruised; he'd fallen on the metal door frame, but he twisted to look back into the apartment. All the lights were burning as he remembered; the tv was on. He rose and looked over the couch; Blair's book lay upside down, as if set down for a moment. But there was no Blair. 

Jim stood perfectly still and listened with all his heart: for a breath, a heartbeat, a movement. He let his hearing stretch throughout the apartment, out into the hallway, and down the stairs onto the front steps and into the street. Nothing. Then he directed his attention behind him: out the balcony doors and down, around the corner, into the alley. He heard a cat cry out in despair, a baby from two apartments over and one floor down laugh, an oven timer ping, a car pass splashing by. And then he heard Blair. 

A tiny sound only the most sophisticated of microphones could have picked up, but Jim heard it. He ran out the door, leaving it ajar, down the stairs and around the corner. He found Blair lying behind overflowing aluminum trash cans, waking into an uncomfortable consciousness, groaning in displeasure. 

"Blair," he whispered, and put his arms around his friend. "Jesus, oh dear Jesus, thank you," and he kissed his Guide's wet face and hair and gently pulled him into a sitting position. "Honey, are you all right?" 

Blair pushed the coils of wet hair back from his face and stared at Jim kneeling closely beside him. "Yeah, but what is wrong with you?" he asked, eyes wide with some emotion Jim couldn't identify. 

"How'd you get here?" Jim asked, ignoring Blair's question. "Do you remember anything?" 

Blair's mouth dropped as he looked around him. "No, no, what happened, why are we here?" 

Jim hugged him again, holding him tightly. "I thought I'd lost you. Blair, get up, can you get up? Let's get dry. I left all the doors open in the loft." 

Knocking over a trash can, they pulled themselves to their feet. As they staggered through the downpour, Blair asked again, "What happened?" 

"I don't know," Jim finally said when they'd reached the elevator. "We need to talk. We need to get dry first, though. Weird shit, Sandburg." 

Blair looked up at him. "You kissed me, Jim." Just then the elevator door slid open and Jim escaped, pulling Sandburg along behind him. Once inside, he locked the door, locked the balcony doors, and checked all the windows, rattling them to be sure they were firmly locked. Then he checked all the closets and cupboards, even behind the shower curtain, while Blair stripped and dried. Jim tossed him his robe from the hook behind the bathroom door, and started a fire before he, too, stripped and dried himself. Then he put on a pot of coffee and turned, just as he had earlier that evening, to find Blair sitting cross-legged on the sofa, watching him. 

He almost ran to Blair's side, pushing the book onto the floor and wrapping his arms around his friend. Blair hugged him back, and only then could Jim start to relax. "Dear Jesus," he said again, and turned his head so he could again kiss his Guide. Blair kissed him back, quite enthusiastically, Jim thought, and their lips parted, then kissed, and parted again. Jim sniffed and hoped he wasn't catching cold. 

"When the coffee's ready," he told Blair at last, "I have such a story for you." 

Blair's lips curled into a half-smile, reminding Jim of an Etruscan statue he'd seen once in Rome, a wise and knowing smile of forgiveness and acceptance. "I can't wait to hear it," he said, and then kissed Jim, firmly and finally. 


End file.
